Dead Hearts
by cartoon moomba
Summary: Yeul is a blazing Phoenix and Caius wishes to tear the heart of her rebirth right out. "This Yeul is eleven, and she dies at thirteen, and she never smiles again in the two years inbetween."


**Disclaimer: **Final Fantasy XIII-2 does not belong to me. Lyrics by Digital Daggers.

**AN: ***sobs* YEEUUUUUULLLL. In other news, this came out more abstract than I was planning on, but after staring at it for several days I couldn't find anything else to add.

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Dead Hearts

_(I'd die to be where you are.)_

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To Caius, Yeul is—

_Tragedy,perfection,innocence,wisdom_

—Yeul is a mess of things but to him she is Beauty personified, all that is good and right in the two worlds. Yeul is a Yeul who is graceful, a Yeul who loves to sing and dance, a Yeul who loves her flowers and a Yeul who hates the world (to name only a few). He has lost count of exactly how many Yeuls he has served in his wretched immortality, all with different quirks and faults and hobbies but always: Paddra Nsu-Yeul, at first, then Seeress, then _Yeul. _To him, she will forevermore be _just Yeul. _

While Paddra still stands, Yeul is always Paddra Nsu-Yeul: their very own Goddess.

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Yeul is unlike the others her age, so naturally, the children fear her. It is an awed type of fear, nurtured by the similar fear their parents hold over their child-Goddess. She resides deep within the heart of Paddra in a massive temple (castle, one could say) and is served upon day and night. The revered Leader is loved by all. She is feared by all – the two often go hand in hand, some people will tell you.

Caius, the immortal, knows he once feared her just like the rest – he just does not remember it, per say. When he was only of Paddra, a man battling desperately to defend his home; and as Paddra Ballad-Caius (_Caius of the Ballads_, he took the name and history was made to be rewritten by human hands to accommodate such an ethereal Guardian) those first several cycles of Paddra Nsu-Yeul's equally immortal soul. He accepts his Guardianship gladly – or, perhaps, he is never given a choice.

(This Etro-blessed immortality of his – perhaps their child-Goddess will no longer ever be alone.)

The first Paddra Nsu-Yeul he guards is thirteen, and he has two years to know her before her inevitable death. They bring him into the receiving chambers, where he is left alone, and there she stands clad in a golden crown and flowing robes of silver. She smiles and paints the very picture of elegance.

"Hello, Caius of the Ballads. I am Yeul."

He bows down low before her, his eyes trained on the floor as a sign of respect. He has been taught to never gaze into the Seeress' eyes; this immortal, beautiful child is above them all. She is cradled close by Etro herself.

"Please rise, Caius of the Ballads. Our futures, from now on and to the end of time itself, are one."

He dares to look directly into the great Seerees' eyes for the first time in his life. Her smile curves upwards.

"…I have long awaited your coming here, Caius of the Ballads," she speaks in the dulcet tones of an ancient child, and (_she is so young, and he is just a man_) he feels the fear settle around his heart.

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He learns much about his first Yeul, and from her, of the Yeuls he will meet from there on out. He discovers the childlike innocence that often slips over her when she is not under the scrutiny of her people, of his present Yeul's love of history and of the Pulsian land. She enjoys gazing towards Lindzei's nest in the sky, and when he asks her why, she tells him that she is imagining paradise.

By her fourth cycle, the fear-awe-reverence has gone. After all, what sort of Goddess dies in his arms with the body of a small child, smiling much like a child would – shouldn't?

(_what sort of fate is this, to die and constantly be reborn, never to see beyond fifteen years—_)

During the time of his fifth Yeul, Paddra falls and she dons a veil and sheds the name Paddra Nsu and the crown that comes along with it. "I am merely Yeul the Seeress, now," she says quietly, gazing upon what remains of their home. Her long hair no longer brushes the skin of her legs, held tightly instead within the headdress she has chosen to wear. This Yeul is eleven, and she dies at thirteen, and she never smiles again in the two years inbetween.

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"Immortality is not so bad," she tells him once, at some point in time that he can no longer pinpoint with certainty. "The world moves forward, and we move forward with it. We do not abide by death's constraints and are free to experience all that comes with the passage of time."

He wonders, "You would bear your own death, time and time again, for the sake of this?"

Yeul smiles up at him, timeworn and seventeen. "Of course."

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"_Lightning… It flashes bright, then fades away._"

Yeul's quiet voice catches his attention as they weather a storm within the seaside village of Oerba. Caius raises his head from where he sits on a nearby cot, running his fingers over the sharp edge of his blade.

"_It can't protect,_" the Seeress continues in a softer tone. "_It only destroys._ I heard those words in my last vision."

Caius frowns, but his concern is more for the frustration he can hear building behind Yeul's calm façade, and not for what the words could mean. Tellingly, her sigh comes another moment later.

"I don't know what it could be."

He shifts, adjusting the sword in his lap to a more comfortable position as he readies to guard the Seeress through the night. "The answer will come to you soon enough. You must sleep, Yeul."

He can almost see her smiling in the darkness. "Whatever you say, Caius."

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_._

_._

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There have been times when he has wandered the world alone, with no Yeul by his side simply because no Yeul has yet been born. They never last long, for which he is glad.

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.

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She says, with a shy smile on her face,

"Two lifetimes before you came to me, I saw you in a vision. You held me as I died."

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"_This eternity – it was never your desire."_

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To Caius, Yeul is a mess of things – but she is always the epitome of beauty and tragedy woven into one. Her childish face gazes up into his every time, for the first time that he takes her away, and that is when she always remembers –

"Hello, Caius of the Ballads. I am Yeul."

The words will come despite her age, and sometimes she will cry. He does not wish to know the reasons why and merely draws her into his arms (they part like this and they meet like this) and holds her for the briefest of moments. Once, he makes the mistake of murmuring into her ear:

"I will destroy Valhalla for you,"

and her eyes flash with gold, tears rolling down the contours of her cheeks as she dies.

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As the world continues on towards its end, he knows less and less Yeuls – for her body is as human as the rest of them, and Death is a certainty for them all.

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A boy of no more than three or four stands before him with his arms spread wide, blocking the woman behind him – and behind her, the very familiar child.

And Caius realizes, in a sudden moment of unexpected clarity –

_He is the one._

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"I was the first human alive," Yeul confesses to him once, dying yet again within his gentle embrace. "Perhaps… perhaps I have grown tired after all."

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"_Is that not so, Yeul?"_


End file.
